"There is no post hoc explanation that makes Abraham a good person for almost killing his son by the demand of his powerful benefactor."
I understand this to say there is no explanation that makes a person good for killing another person because someone demanded it. By this reasoning, there is no post hoc explanation that makes God a good person for killing his Son by the demand of Himself. The two stories (Abraham sacrificing Isaac and God sacrificing Christ) are very closely tied together.
If you read the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price, then you should also know there is a Joseph Smith Translation to the Bible. There is one the specifically covers Lot's proposition: http://lds.org/scriptures/jst/jst-gen/19?lang=eng. You are right that no righteous father would ever give his daughters over to a crowd to be raped.
Sorry I wasn't clear on this one. It's what happens when you rush to respond. I should have said that I didn't buy the Lifetime subscription because of the large up-front cost and I believe I could only get it with the TiVo Series 3 (I may be wrong on this) which wouldn't work with satellite.
I should have said, I don't mind paying $100/year for someone to maintain my DVR, vice me having to maintain my MythTV server, which I spent many hours doing with much frustration.
I have a Tivo series 2 working fine with my DirectTV provider. While it's not as good as cable (can only record one show at a time), it's good enough for my needs.
DirectTV is supposed to be working on something with Tivo to provide a DVR service. See this link for more info:
I'm in the Tivo boat on this one. It's just easier. I spent so much time setting up MythTv (I've done it on PCs, laptops, and even an xbox) and maintaining it was always a pain. I finally got fed up enough and bought a Tivo. Since then, I haven't had any complaints, except as he said, resetting listings when you switch providers. I've really enjoyed the Tivo suggestions feature as well. I was tempted to get the lifetime contract, but instead I'm willing to pay ~$100/year for someone to maintain my DVR for me.
Electric companies shouldn't be directly linked to Gulf politics. Most of the electricity in the U.S. is produced by coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric energy sources according to the Department of Energy. Petroleum makes up only 1.3% of U.S. electricity production. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
Your point is a good one though, that energy prices will most likely go up per kWh.
I meant more for the "cash back" fee from the supermarket. Not all banks have given up on all ATM fees, but there are ways around it or I can usually find a bank that is in my bank's network.
According to Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_usage_fees#United_States)
"While many consumers are faced with multiple fees as described above, a number of standalone and internet banks, such as USAA and E-Trade Bank, and Ebank among others, not only do not charge their customers for using another ATM but they also provide reimbursement, worldwide, of another ATM's fee. Thus, customers at some banks in the US can avoid ATM fees altogether. Another popular way to avoid paying ATM fees is to make a "cash back" purchase at a retail store: many retailers will allow a customer who is paying with a debit card to withdraw more than the total due the retailer and get back the difference in cash."
Computers can send text messages for free. Do you really think the spammer is burning through his cell phone keypad texting a million people? Locking out computers from the cellphone networks could be one possible solution, but I like getting texts from friends using an instant messenger.
Text messages should be free. The bandwidth required to send a text message should be ridiculously low. I can understand the desire to recoup development costs of the service, but I think this is the cell phone carriers way of tapping in to the elusive younger crowd's wallets to spread their income across a larger spread of services.
Cell phone carriers should provide this as a free service to entice subscribers to switch to them. I predict this will go the way of the ATM fees once one major service provider starts promoting it. I can see the campaign now, likening it to freedom. "Those other evil companies want to suppress your freedom of text! Not at X carrier, let freedom ring!"
9. Just because people download illegal songs, does not mean that people would pay for those songs if they didn't have access to pirating.
12. Has he never heard of DHCP or NAT?
13. Couldn't Media Sentry be seen as entrapment? It downloads copyrighted works from people, that if Media Sentry wasn't there, might not have been downloaded at all.
What additional data tracks the movement of these files through the Internet? Does Media Sentry put watermarks in the files that they inject into the P2P stream, which files wouldn't be in the P2P network if the Media Sentry hadn't put there?
15. What other evidence is collected by MediaSentry? Is this exculpatory evidence? Can it prove that the file passed started with MediaSentry, and wouldn't have been in the P2P stream if it wasn't for MediaSentry?
16. How do you go from IP to computer if they are behind a router using NAT?
21. Taking one P2P user out of the loop doesn't remove the files from the P2P network. The files are still being shared by other users. The copyright owner is still economically harmed.
Zero Benefit? I think not. I got updated graphics for the free windows games and a couple of new games (Chess and Purple Palace). How can you deny these benefits???
You can whine all you want about how Windows crashes all the time. In the end, all that matters is will it work on the ship? I have seen Unix systems crash before. Even military systems based on Unix crash. The code that the programmers make to run the device must be as solid as the operating system beneath it. If you add crap software to any OS, you get crashes. Even worse than crashes are poorly designed interfaces. What kind of programmer makes the user type in perfectly a 100 character fire assignments, with no chance to use backspace or delete?
How many times have you hit spacebar just to level up your jumping? How many spells that cost 1 mana do you have in your spellbook? So you can cast it over and over and over. A friend of mine would pick up armor and weapons just to repair it and toss it on the ground.
Now, do you have to do this? No, but if you want the best character possible, yes. It all depends on your definition of fun. Some people like the process of getting better. I think Thomas Paine stated well, a reason why game developers include tedious steps in RPGs.
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776
I actually found the game was funner when I didn't go for the perfect character. I first played Oblivion trying to get the best character possible. It wasn't fun and I didn't even finish it. I played it months later and stuck with "class" skills and had much more fun, actually finishing the game. (Sneaking while Chameleoned and killing with bows was just fun.)
Could you frame someone? There are things like IP spoofing. Could someone have spoofed your client's IP address?
Could the computer have been a zombie (taken over by a hacker) and forced to share via P2P? (Hacker motivation: seeks more zombies, pollutes P2P network with zombie software and real software to gain credibility)
If the client has a wireless network, could the neighbors or a hacker who went war driving have downloaded the songs via wireless.
Is the computer owner responsible for all actions of anyone who used the computer? Did other people have accesses to the computer that could have installed kazaa and downloaded the songs?
Can you tell which user was logged in when kazaa was active? Do all users use the same account? (Administrator?) How many people had access to that account? Guests, friends, visitors?
Does the client have DHCP enabled? or is it a static IP address? Could other users on the same network (same ISP, different household) as the client get the same IP address via DHCP or statically set it and use their IP address when the client's computer is off?
Considering the analogous case of DVDs, true you bring up a brilliant point that legislation can reduce the occurence of something by outlawing it, but I was merely stating that you can't eliminate it. BTW, I think you'd be amazed at how many people do pirate movies in the U.S., or at least the movie industry thinks it's a possible huge problem, if it isn't currently. Why else would I see a huge add before every movie that states that pirating hurts movies?
They tried to make reading DVDs impossible without an authorized player. The encryption was broken and DVDs can be read in computers through unlicensed software, the fact that this did not catch on (widespread) in the U.S. is due to the low price of DVD players. Most people will pay for something thats easy to use and cheap, rather than steal it through complex technical means that requires a degree of computer know-how. If the price of DVD players was $5000 and DVDs cost $200 dollars, you would see a huge change in the way people reacted to it, hence the large piracy in 3rd world countries that aren't able to enjoy the same luxuries on as large scale as the United States.
3rd world countries are also more relaxed towards piracy. This may be because they don't have companies that produce the products that are being stolen and don't have lots of money in reserve to higher lawyers to prosecute pirates. The fact that you are sticking it the the U.S is always a bonus in the eyes of other nations.
In the end, you can legislate all you want on boxes like slingbox or DVD players, but you can't enforce it once it goes to the software world. If people want it bad enough, they will get it by hook or by crook.
Wouldn't it be nice if they just came out and said it? Wouldn't it be nice if criminals wore signs that said they were criminals before they even did anything wrong, but they intended to commit a crime? If terrorists coordinated there attacks in emails with an evil bit turned on so that we knew we should monitor them. Yeah, it would be nice, but is it possible? No.
You cannot force an evil person to reveal their intentions without coercion and if you try to coerce, what if you are wrong and they are innocent? You can trick, you can convince, but you cannot force without impacting innocent lives. Only God has the power to passively know the intents of the human heart.
"very similar to sites like SourceForge but is not intended to compete with them"
****Missing from the original post**** ", but is intended to replace them."
Why compete when you can crush?
They can legislate all they want, but enforcing is a different issue. Just as there is no evil bit to stop terrorists, there is no bit that can be easily detected to see if someone is broadcasting media. True something could be created to detect if mpg files or other standard video files are being played, but that takes a lot of work and can be easily encrypted.
The devices they legislate could easily be identified if it comes as a box (Slingbox). The software versions will be impossible to legislate without the software creators cooperation, and without it they will have to turn to computer hardware vendors. They will need to legislate computers with capture devices and a network interface. This could be simplified by legistaling all capture devices, like how HD tv capture cards have to have the broadcast bit. The capture cards would have to encrypt it to something only a licensed software product could read (and of course the encryption would eventually be broken). This encrypting could be worked around with a video/audio capture program because you have to play it somewhere for a capture device to be useful, but this would be a huge deterrent.
My two cents: Accept the reality that it is. Crack down on pirates (unlicensed distributers of copyrighted materials), but let people who just want to watch something they've legally recorded anywhere they want.
Difference between WRT54G and WAP54G = $20 and a little work.
I wanted to set up MythTv for my home. My internet access is in the back room but I watch myth in the front room. Naturally I went with wireless since the wife didn't want the ugly cables. I went to my local electronics store and bought a 54G not thinking it couldn't be a client. I set it up and home and found out I bought the wrong product rather quickly. Knowing that hacks like this exist for anything with a chip I did a little research and found the SVEASoft firmware. Downloaded it from another site (it's open source, thank you Linksys). I upgraded my firmware and on reboot got a blinking red light. That's when I found out about the term brick.
After my heart started beating again, I did another search and found a quick tutorial on how to un-brick your system and first step is to try the Linksys exe (worked like a charm, again thanks Linksys). I then found DD-WRT, installed and worked like a charm. I was a little confused that I had to set my clients name as the same as the wireless server to enable the bridge, but after getting that straight everything worked like a charm.
Overall, the potential heart attack was not worth $20, but the satisfaction of buying something, finding out it doesn't work and turning to the open source community for the answer, Priceless.
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"There is no post hoc explanation that makes Abraham a good person for almost killing his son by the demand of his powerful benefactor."
I understand this to say there is no explanation that makes a person good for killing another person because someone demanded it. By this reasoning, there is no post hoc explanation that makes God a good person for killing his Son by the demand of Himself. The two stories (Abraham sacrificing Isaac and God sacrificing Christ) are very closely tied together.
If you read the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price, then you should also know there is a Joseph Smith Translation to the Bible. There is one the specifically covers Lot's proposition: http://lds.org/scriptures/jst/jst-gen/19?lang=eng. You are right that no righteous father would ever give his daughters over to a crowd to be raped.
Sorry I wasn't clear on this one. It's what happens when you rush to respond. I should have said that I didn't buy the Lifetime subscription because of the large up-front cost and I believe I could only get it with the TiVo Series 3 (I may be wrong on this) which wouldn't work with satellite.
I should have said, I don't mind paying $100/year for someone to maintain my DVR, vice me having to maintain my MythTV server, which I spent many hours doing with much frustration.
I have a Tivo series 2 working fine with my DirectTV provider. While it's not as good as cable (can only record one show at a time), it's good enough for my needs.
DirectTV is supposed to be working on something with Tivo to provide a DVR service. See this link for more info:
http://www.tivo.com/dvr-products/tivo-partners/tivo-directv/index.html
I'm in the Tivo boat on this one. It's just easier. I spent so much time setting up MythTv (I've done it on PCs, laptops, and even an xbox) and maintaining it was always a pain. I finally got fed up enough and bought a Tivo. Since then, I haven't had any complaints, except as he said, resetting listings when you switch providers. I've really enjoyed the Tivo suggestions feature as well. I was tempted to get the lifetime contract, but instead I'm willing to pay ~$100/year for someone to maintain my DVR for me.
Electric companies shouldn't be directly linked to Gulf politics. Most of the electricity in the U.S. is produced by coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric energy sources according to the Department of Energy. Petroleum makes up only 1.3% of U.S. electricity production. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
Your point is a good one though, that energy prices will most likely go up per kWh.
Apparently you didn't see the movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive
I meant more for the "cash back" fee from the supermarket. Not all banks have given up on all ATM fees, but there are ways around it or I can usually find a bank that is in my bank's network.
According to Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_usage_fees#United_States)
"While many consumers are faced with multiple fees as described above, a number of standalone and internet banks, such as USAA and E-Trade Bank, and Ebank among others, not only do not charge their customers for using another ATM but they also provide reimbursement, worldwide, of another ATM's fee. Thus, customers at some banks in the US can avoid ATM fees altogether. Another popular way to avoid paying ATM fees is to make a "cash back" purchase at a retail store: many retailers will allow a customer who is paying with a debit card to withdraw more than the total due the retailer and get back the difference in cash."
Computers can send text messages for free. Do you really think the spammer is burning through his cell phone keypad texting a million people? Locking out computers from the cellphone networks could be one possible solution, but I like getting texts from friends using an instant messenger.
Text messages should be free. The bandwidth required to send a text message should be ridiculously low. I can understand the desire to recoup development costs of the service, but I think this is the cell phone carriers way of tapping in to the elusive younger crowd's wallets to spread their income across a larger spread of services.
Cell phone carriers should provide this as a free service to entice subscribers to switch to them. I predict this will go the way of the ATM fees once one major service provider starts promoting it. I can see the campaign now, likening it to freedom. "Those other evil companies want to suppress your freedom of text! Not at X carrier, let freedom ring!"
According to http://news.com.com/Man+sues+Microsoft+over+allege d+Xbox+360+glitch/2100-1043_3-5982759.html?tag=nl this Reuters Story on CNET, which no longer exists, someone is suing over the overheating.This article has a little more info.http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Microsoft_sued_du e_to_case_of_Xbox_360s_overheating
Just adding my two cents.
9. Just because people download illegal songs, does not mean that people would pay for those songs if they didn't have access to pirating.
12. Has he never heard of DHCP or NAT?
13. Couldn't Media Sentry be seen as entrapment? It downloads copyrighted works from people, that if Media Sentry wasn't there, might not have been downloaded at all.
What additional data tracks the movement of these files through the Internet? Does Media Sentry put watermarks in the files that they inject into the P2P stream, which files wouldn't be in the P2P network if the Media Sentry hadn't put there?
15. What other evidence is collected by MediaSentry? Is this exculpatory evidence? Can it prove that the file passed started with MediaSentry, and wouldn't have been in the P2P stream if it wasn't for MediaSentry?
16. How do you go from IP to computer if they are behind a router using NAT?
21. Taking one P2P user out of the loop doesn't remove the files from the P2P network. The files are still being shared by other users. The copyright owner is still economically harmed.
Zero Benefit? I think not. I got updated graphics for the free windows games and a couple of new games (Chess and Purple Palace). How can you deny these benefits???
You can whine all you want about how Windows crashes all the time. In the end, all that matters is will it work on the ship? I have seen Unix systems crash before. Even military systems based on Unix crash. The code that the programmers make to run the device must be as solid as the operating system beneath it. If you add crap software to any OS, you get crashes. Even worse than crashes are poorly designed interfaces. What kind of programmer makes the user type in perfectly a 100 character fire assignments, with no chance to use backspace or delete?
Thoughts on Oblivion:
How many times have you hit spacebar just to level up your jumping?
How many spells that cost 1 mana do you have in your spellbook? So you can cast it over and over and over.
A friend of mine would pick up armor and weapons just to repair it and toss it on the ground.
Now, do you have to do this? No, but if you want the best character possible, yes. It all depends on your definition of fun. Some people like the process of getting better. I think Thomas Paine stated well, a reason why game developers include tedious steps in RPGs.
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776
I actually found the game was funner when I didn't go for the perfect character. I first played Oblivion trying to get the best character possible. It wasn't fun and I didn't even finish it. I played it months later and stuck with "class" skills and had much more fun, actually finishing the game. (Sneaking while Chameleoned and killing with bows was just fun.)
Could someone else have done it?
Could you frame someone? There are things like IP spoofing. Could someone have spoofed your client's IP address?
Could the computer have been a zombie (taken over by a hacker) and forced to share via P2P? (Hacker motivation: seeks more zombies, pollutes P2P network with zombie software and real software to gain credibility)
If the client has a wireless network, could the neighbors or a hacker who went war driving have downloaded the songs via wireless.
Is the computer owner responsible for all actions of anyone who used the computer? Did other people have accesses to the computer that could have installed kazaa and downloaded the songs?
Can you tell which user was logged in when kazaa was active? Do all users use the same account? (Administrator?) How many people had access to that account? Guests, friends, visitors?
Does the client have DHCP enabled? or is it a static IP address? Could other users on the same network (same ISP, different household) as the client get the same IP address via DHCP or statically set it and use their IP address when the client's computer is off?
Good luck!
Considering the analogous case of DVDs, true you bring up a brilliant point that legislation can reduce the occurence of something by outlawing it, but I was merely stating that you can't eliminate it. BTW, I think you'd be amazed at how many people do pirate movies in the U.S., or at least the movie industry thinks it's a possible huge problem, if it isn't currently. Why else would I see a huge add before every movie that states that pirating hurts movies?
They tried to make reading DVDs impossible without an authorized player. The encryption was broken and DVDs can be read in computers through unlicensed software, the fact that this did not catch on (widespread) in the U.S. is due to the low price of DVD players. Most people will pay for something thats easy to use and cheap, rather than steal it through complex technical means that requires a degree of computer know-how. If the price of DVD players was $5000 and DVDs cost $200 dollars, you would see a huge change in the way people reacted to it, hence the large piracy in 3rd world countries that aren't able to enjoy the same luxuries on as large scale as the United States.
3rd world countries are also more relaxed towards piracy. This may be because they don't have companies that produce the products that are being stolen and don't have lots of money in reserve to higher lawyers to prosecute pirates. The fact that you are sticking it the the U.S is always a bonus in the eyes of other nations.
In the end, you can legislate all you want on boxes like slingbox or DVD players, but you can't enforce it once it goes to the software world. If people want it bad enough, they will get it by hook or by crook.
How do you weed out the good from the bad?
Wouldn't it be nice if they just came out and said it? Wouldn't it be nice if criminals wore signs that said they were criminals before they even did anything wrong, but they intended to commit a crime? If terrorists coordinated there attacks in emails with an evil bit turned on so that we knew we should monitor them. Yeah, it would be nice, but is it possible? No.
You cannot force an evil person to reveal their intentions without coercion and if you try to coerce, what if you are wrong and they are innocent? You can trick, you can convince, but you cannot force without impacting innocent lives. Only God has the power to passively know the intents of the human heart.
"very similar to sites like SourceForge but is not intended to compete with them" ****Missing from the original post**** ", but is intended to replace them." Why compete when you can crush?
They can legislate all they want, but enforcing is a different issue. Just as there is no evil bit to stop terrorists, there is no bit that can be easily detected to see if someone is broadcasting media. True something could be created to detect if mpg files or other standard video files are being played, but that takes a lot of work and can be easily encrypted.
The devices they legislate could easily be identified if it comes as a box (Slingbox). The software versions will be impossible to legislate without the software creators cooperation, and without it they will have to turn to computer hardware vendors. They will need to legislate computers with capture devices and a network interface. This could be simplified by legistaling all capture devices, like how HD tv capture cards have to have the broadcast bit. The capture cards would have to encrypt it to something only a licensed software product could read (and of course the encryption would eventually be broken). This encrypting could be worked around with a video/audio capture program because you have to play it somewhere for a capture device to be useful, but this would be a huge deterrent.
My two cents: Accept the reality that it is. Crack down on pirates (unlicensed distributers of copyrighted materials), but let people who just want to watch something they've legally recorded anywhere they want.
Difference between WRT54G and WAP54G = $20 and a little work. I wanted to set up MythTv for my home. My internet access is in the back room but I watch myth in the front room. Naturally I went with wireless since the wife didn't want the ugly cables. I went to my local electronics store and bought a 54G not thinking it couldn't be a client. I set it up and home and found out I bought the wrong product rather quickly. Knowing that hacks like this exist for anything with a chip I did a little research and found the SVEASoft firmware. Downloaded it from another site (it's open source, thank you Linksys). I upgraded my firmware and on reboot got a blinking red light. That's when I found out about the term brick. After my heart started beating again, I did another search and found a quick tutorial on how to un-brick your system and first step is to try the Linksys exe (worked like a charm, again thanks Linksys). I then found DD-WRT, installed and worked like a charm. I was a little confused that I had to set my clients name as the same as the wireless server to enable the bridge, but after getting that straight everything worked like a charm. Overall, the potential heart attack was not worth $20, but the satisfaction of buying something, finding out it doesn't work and turning to the open source community for the answer, Priceless.